NATO og industrien: samme mål, forskjellige språk?

NATO and industry:

same goals, different languages?

In 2012, global military spending

fell for the first time

in 15 years to 1.7 trillion dollars.

The defence industry knows

it’s time to get creative.

One of the most often quotes

that you’ll hear from Churchill is:

Now that have spent all our money,

we have to start thinking,

and I think industry has to be

within that thought process.

The defence industry needs

to take a proactive role.

It must show that it can supply ideas

as well as products.

Some new ideas can come

from the end users in the battlefield.

We spend a lot of time

with our customers, the war fighters,

when they come back

from areas like Afghanistan,

where they’re using our products,

for example the Chinook helicopter.

Every time a unit rotates back,

we send teams out

to sit down with them

and hear from them directly

what's happening with the helicopter.

How do we improve it?

How do we make it safer

for you and your crew?

In Lockheed Martin almost 25%

of our workforce, they're veterans.

They have worn the uniform,

have been the war fighters.

We have a great, not just an empathy,

but a great sense

of responsibility for making sure

that not only can they

accomplish their mission

and return home,

but are continually given an edge.

But industry doesn’t sell to soldiers,

it sells to organisations

and governments.

How easy is it do deal with NATO,

where there are

28 governments represented?

We respond to NATO

and NATO tends therefore

to come to us with a single voice,

with single requests.

And we don’t see, if you like,

the politicking behind the scenes

that may have gone on

to arrive at that question.

How does one of NATO’s responses

to the changing security

and economy, smart defence,

fit into industry’s workings?

Smart defence will require

a lot more collaboration,

so how easy do they think

it will be to implement?

Smart defence is, I think,

a very interesting project

because it is not a NATO programme,

but a cooperative programme

between nations.

NATO becomes the organiser,

the catalyser for it to start.

Funding, execution...

will all be done nationally.

They think the disconnect often is

between what the countries

end up developing

and what NATO

actually needs for the alliance.

The issue obviously is:

How can NATO take smart defence

from being a concept

to being an actual planning tool

at the national level.

High-level games are nice,

but the implementation

happens at lower levels.

There are still some people

struggling with how you go do that.

And how do you execute it

without every nation

in the alliance saying:

I like the idea

as long as you buy my equipment.

And so we have to get past that.

I haven’t met anyone

who doesn’t at least subscribe

to the philosophy

around smart defence,

but there are many practical barriers.

So what are the obstacles

to making it happen quickly?

The existing structure

of international trade regulations,

mostly built

from a cold war mentality,

is somewhat out of alignment

with the notion of smart defence.

The biggest nut to crack really

isn’t individual intentions or goodwill,

it’s the ability

to share information effectively

so that it doesn’t drive cost up

or extend schedules

because it costs money.

But NATO’s influence

in the industry is increasing

and that may help it

play a bigger role in the future.

Companies like ours, who were...

who saw NATO as a marginal

opportunity maybe five years ago,

now see NATO

as an important opportunity.

We have... currently we’re running

ten contracts with NATO,

which is a very sizeable amount.

NATO represents probably

our third or fourth largest customer

in the world,

which is a lot different

than where it was a few years back.

And I think that helps.

Despite all this, some industry

representatives emphasize

that this is about improving

collaboration, not creating it.

I think all too often we get

hung up on interoperability as:

You have to have my radio

or you have to have this airplane.

We in NATO have proven

over the last several decades

working together, training together,

going to school together,

having a beer together,

you learn how to get over those

issues where I have a different radio

or my airplane drops different bombs

or I don’t have

a capability that you do.

You just learn to get through that.